


Warcross

by AsperJasper



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Virtual Reality, go read warcross so you can hate hideo tanaka too, video games - Freeform, warcross au, warcross is better than ready player one come at me bro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 11:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20759444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsperJasper/pseuds/AsperJasper
Summary: For a lot of people, this was probably the most exciting time of year, every year.Matchups every night, the best teams in the world playing each other until only eight were left standing to compete in the finals.In which Davey accidentally ends up competing in an international VR game championship and has to save the world.





	Warcross

For a lot of people, this was probably the most exciting time of year, every year.

Matchups every night, the best teams in the world playing each other until only eight were left standing to compete in the finals.

This was the first time in three years Davey had gotten to watch from the virtual stands, and it wasn’t by choice, it was because he’d lost his job at the last bar in the neighborhood who’d used human servers when they decided androids were cheaper, so instead of working the busiest shift of the year and making more in tips than he did in six normal months he was sitting at home, logged into the arena and trying to enjoy himself for one night without worrying about making rent next week.

Like pretty much every person on the planet, Davey had a pair of Warcross glasses. His weren’t the newest model or the nicest. They had a few scratches, still needed to be plugged in to charge, and he’d had to mess with the hardware to get them to accept the last update to the massive virtual world. He was pretty sure he’d need a new pair for the next update, no matter how good his skills were.

But they worked. They let him join the virtual world that was Warcross, and so he got to sit on the floor at home and feel like he was in the qualifier arena in London.

“The Red Wires are my favorites!” Les was chattering in his ear, his real ear, not his virtual ear. “They’re new this year! Their Captain used to be part of the Desert Wings, but he left because the sponsor that started the Red Wires offered him more money! People are saying there’s all kinds of bad blood between them except they’re both favorites for the finals, so they might have to deal with each other.”

“Bad blood between who?” Sarah’s avatar popped into existence next to Davey when she put her own glasses on next to him in the living room.

“The Desert Wings and the Red Wires! Most just Spot, he’s the Captain of the Red Wires, because he left the Desert Wings without an Architect when he signed with the Wires.”

“What about the wildcards?”

“They were already down to four because their Shield left, and it’s easier to get a good Shield out of the wildcards than a good Architect.”

“Technically, couldn’t all of them have been replaced?” Davey finally joined the conversation. “Since technically the team sponsor picks the four who aren’t wildcards, and the sponsor doesn’t have to pick the old team.” Technically, Davey was right, but he knew the answer Les was about to give was also right.

Sometimes it was just more fun to hear Les get so excited about something. It was good for all of them to escape from their lives for a little bit, especially Les, who was only ten and deserved to get so excited about a game and not worry about maybe having to move in a week or maybe not having dinner for a few days.

“Except everyone knows Jack is going to stay Captain and Race is going to stay Thief and Albert is going to stay Fighter because everybody loves them and they win a lot, and everyone expected Spot to stay for the same reason, especially after Smalls announced they weren’t competing anymore. And apparently, Spot didn’t tell the rest of them he was leaving until the official announcement from the sponsor who made the Wires. So everybody thinks they all hate him now.”

“Who’s the Wings’ new Shield?” Sarah asked.

“He was a wildcard who didn’t get picked last year,” Davey said.

“I knew you paid more attention than you pretend to,” Les said, and Davey felt his small, pointy elbow shove into his side. “His name is Crutchie Morris, and they only signed him like a month before the season started.”

“He’s good,” Sarah commented. “Did you see him in their first round? He’s a fast thinker.”

“Who’re the favorites to win, Les?”

“The Wings and the Wires everybody thinks will be in the finals unless something goes really wrong today. And most people think it's between the Meteor Diamonds and Steel Blitz for the last spot.”

The sound of the virtual arena suddenly dulled around them, replaced with loud beeping from the screen suspended above the arena as it counted down the start of the new round.

“Who’s playing now, Les?” Davey asked, trying to make out the faces of the people on the field.

“Wings versus Ice Dragons. The Wings are missing an Architect, the Dragons are missing a Shield.”

It was pretty obvious it wasn’t much of a competition.

To be at the qualifiers, the Dragons had to be in the top Warcross teams in the world. There were at least a hundred professional teams, all of them going into the season with the goal of making it to the qualifiers and eventually the finals, so making it to this arena was an accomplishment. To make to this round, they had to be in the top nine, having already won one round in the qualifiers.

But they weren’t even competition to the Wings.

The Desert Wings were dressed in fiery orange body con jumpsuits, and they were literally running circles around their opponents.

The Ice Dragons sent their Thief to nab a power-up from Albert, the Wings’ Fighter, who seemed to be totally unprotected, only to get knocked aside by Crutchie who seemed to appear from nowhere with a cheerful smile to stop the move.

Every member of Dragons looked focused, slightly distressed, and like they were putting a lot of effort into what they were doing.

The Desert Wings were all smiling every time the screen zoomed in on their faces, and although no voices were being broadcast from the closed mic systems each team had, it was pretty obvious that as many jokes as plans were being exchanged between them.

It was obvious when the round started to wind down not only from the expressions on the other teams’ faces, but because they had started to move individually, while the Wings were still working as one unit, moving together.

Even without the advantage of an Architect to shift the terrain to make it easier, they protected their Captain and cornered the other Captains with apparent ease.

And then Davey saw it.

It appeared right behind the clump of players on the field, and he could tell the players hadn’t noticed it yet. They also couldn’t hear the screaming of the millions of people watching like Davey could because their audio channels weren’t open to the crowd who wasn’t actually in London.

But Davey noticed it.

He’d only ever seen one in real life.

Four years ago, one had shown up in a professional match he’d been watching.

And he knew of but hadn’t seen a couple in the last few years tournaments.

But a Sudden Death power-up was super rare and worth a lot.

Like, enough to pay all of the rent they owed and the credit card debt they were avoiding and still have some left over for food, too. Like, if he had that in his inventory to pawn off, it would sell for at least ten thousand credits, if not fifteen or twenty.

And it wasn’t like Davey was some kind of criminal mastermind. He’d learned how to hack, sure, but it was out of necessity. He and his siblings had been on his own since he was twelve and Les was four, and work wasn’t exactly easy to come by. Especially in the beginning, when Sarah was fifteen so she could get a job but Davey was still too little to work legally, so he did odd jobs. And Warcross was still so new at that point that when Davey had finally managed to get his hands on a pair of glasses it might as well have been a beginner’s course in hacking.

And as the security got better, so did Davey, because when times were really hard, sometimes the easiest way to earn money was to hack into things like the police database and either find a bounty to hunt that he couldn’t see because he was still a kid and then manage to get the credit for taking him in.

Or in the worst of times, the only way to earn enough money fast enough was by stealing something.

Like a Sudden Death power-up.

So without even really thinking about it, he started poking at the code around the match.

There were four firewalls around the game itself.

Each team had a one around them, too, to keep anybody from messing with them, and every player had something too, though those looked more home-brew security than official tournament or game protection.

The power-up had its own with no obvious breakthrough, which meant the players had to have the key on them somehow.

“Davey, what are you doing?” Sarah asked, sounding worried.

“If I could get enough money to make rent in two minutes would you tell me to go for it?”

“You’ll get caught,” she answered immediately, obviously figuring out what he was planning.

“Not if I do it right.”

He finally found the key, a simple four number code that was the only thing every player on the field had in common in their avatars’ codes.

He could pin that to the end of his own alongside a little addition to make him invisible and get the power-up no problem.

Four.

Eight.

Seven.

Two.

The firewalls around the game took him ten seconds each to slip through, pushing through cracks they’d thought were invisible, and he didn’t need to touch a player as long as he got himself to the power-up and kept himself hidden. Which he could do.

The virtual reality solidified around him even further until he could feel the dirt of the arena under his feet. He moved carefully towards the power up. Grab it, put it in his inventory, phase out. That was it. Simple. Nobody would see him, the teams hadn’t even noticed the power-up behind him yet, it would be fine.

He could hear the players talking down here. They were shouting moves at each other, circling carefully, trying to snatch the Artifacts away from the Captains holding them to win the game.

“Race! Power-up behind you!”

That was bad. Davey could see the Thief moving towards the glowing Sudden Death sphere.

Once it was in his inventory, Davey wouldn’t be able to get it. He needed to touch it before Race did, and hope nobody looked too closely at why the power-up had suddenly vanished.

He was so close. Ten feet away, Race was twenty.

Five, and Race was ten.

He stretched out his arm, almost in arm’s reach, and, and

And his fingers brushed it and he felt a shock go through him and it was in his inventory.

“Who the ever loving fuck is that?”

“Did he just steal our Sudden Death?”

“What the hell?”

Jack Kelly, Captain of the Desert Wings, was looking directly at him, slightly angry confusion very evident on his face.

They could see him.

They could see him right now.

They could see that he’d hacked the qualifier round.

They could see his face and they knew he’d stolen a ridiculously valuable power-up.

Before Davey even had a chance to react, his vision blacked out, replaced by flashing white words.

“Match terminated. Glitch detected.”

And then he was sitting in his living room, his glasses forced to shut down by the match’s programming.

“What did you just do, Davey?” Sarah asked quietly.

“I have no idea.”

“You hacked a game!” Les shrieked. “You’re gonna be in so much trouble!”

Next to him, Davey’s phone buzzed with a call.

_Caller ID Blocked_

“Aren’t you going to answer?” Sarah asked after a few seconds of Davey staring at the screen.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to deal with it.”

Eventually, the phone stopped ringing.

Davey turned it off.

He knew the calls probably wouldn’t stop until he answered.

He also knew he needed to at least sleep one more night without being arrested. Or sued.

Hopefully sued, though he couldn’t believe he was thinking it when they were already in so much debt.

Sarah and Les didn’t say anything to him when he got up and went to the bedroom.

When he woke up in the morning, he’d almost forgotten what had happened the night before.

Until he turned his phone on.

There were forty missed calls and eighteen text notifications. 

The news alert that automatically appeared every morning read, “Level 28 player David Jacobs breaches Warcross qualifier round” with a picture of him standing in the arena, face to face with Jack Kelly.

He could hear Sarah and Les talking in the living room.

He picked swiped his phone open, noticing his hands were shaking, and opened his text messages.

All of the new notifications were from the same number. It was the same text, over and over, every fifteen minutes all night. A new one came through just as he opened the thread.

_David Jacobs please call 417-894-7863 immediately._

He didn’t recognize the number right away. It wasn’t the number the texts were coming from, and the number that had called him was blocked.

But he had a feeling it wouldn’t be good.

He moved into the living room in a daze and stopped when he saw the window.

They were on the third floor, and a crowd was spilling out into the street in front of their building so far that Davey could see dozens of them from where he was standing. Cameras were flashing, he could tell they could see him, too, and he could hear them shouting.

Les was sitting on the couch, holding Sarah’s phone and scrolling through rapidly.

“You’re so famous, Davey!” he said, holding the phone out so Davey could see the seemingly endless headlines with his name in them, almost all accompanied by the same picture of Davey and Jack Kelly in the arena.

Davey’s phone was still open to the text messages.

“Who is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to call, Davey.”

“I know.”

For a few more seconds, Davey just stared at the number in the text messages. It was hyperlinked, so would be able to just hit it and it would call for him. One simple press of the screen.

It still took him a while to work up the courage to do it.

“Warcross Games New York, how may I help you?” A smooth voice Davey couldn’t identify as either human or computer answered.

Warcross Games New York. The headquarters of the company. The place Warcross had been invented.

He was about to be hit with a lawsuit so big his descendants would be in debt until the end of time.

“This is David Jacobs.”

“Oh! We’re glad you’ve returned our call. Mr. Pulitzer wants to inform you-“

And here it came. Directly from the CEO of the company, the man who’d conceived of Warcross in the first place, probably the richest man alive, an accusation that would undoubtedly come with legal action. Because he, Davey Jacobs, in a moment of terrible judgment and the fear of becoming homeless, had been caught hacking into an official game.

Why had he been so stupid?

“That there’s a car waiting for you outside the building. When you’ve gathered your things, please meet the guard in the lobby. The flight will leave as soon as you’re ready.”

What?

“What?”

“Gather your belongings and meet the escort Mr. Pulitzer has provided in the lobby. There’s a plane waiting at the airport to bring you to Tokyo.”

“Why am I being flown to Tokyo?”

God, did it count as an international crime because it was an international event? Was he being expedited to where the finals were being held because he could be punished the most severely there?

“Mr. Pulitzer will meet you there and explain further. Of course, if you choose not to go, further action will have to be coordinated on our end.”

Davey could hear that threat loud and clear.

May Mr. Pulitzer was planning on letting him off easy if he explained the security loopholes he’d used. Maybe all he’d get was a little fine and maybe loosing his Warcross account if he went.

But maybe if he said no to being flown to Tokyo, he’d be in as much trouble as he’d expected in the first place.

“I…I have to talk to my siblings.” Every reason he really couldn’t go hit him at once. “And there are bills to pay and my little brother can’t work yet and-“

“Everything has been taken care of, including your rent for the next year and the credit card debt. Your siblings will be provided with an allowance for as long as Mr. Pulitzer requires your present. Please gather your belongings and meet the escort now. Thank you.”

The phone call ended, leaving Davey staring, absolutely dumbfounded, at Sarah.

“Flown to Tokyo?”

“There’s apparently a car and a plane waiting for him. And Joseph Pulitzer himself just paid our rent. And credit card bills. And is buying you food while I’m gone.”

“What?”

“I have no idea, but I think I need to leave. Like, now.”

Without warning, Les launched himself at Davey, wrapping his arms around his waist.

“But I’ll miss you.”

“I’m sure I’ll be back,” Davey said, hugging him back.

Was he, though? Was he sure he wasn’t being flown to jail?

Sarah joined the hug.

“Guess you better pack some clothes.”

“Don’t forget your toothbrush! And deodorant!”

“And a hairbrush.”

“And nice shoes!”

In five minutes, Davey had a backpack stuffed full of a few outfits and the other things Sarah and Les wanted him to bring.

And in ten he was sitting in a limo after following a bodyguard as he plowed through the crowd that was screaming Davey’s name and taking pictures and asking questions.

It was a ridiculously nice limo, too. There were lights slowing fading from color to color. A fridge with a glass door that showed off way too many snacks for a one person ride to the airport. A fully stocked mini bar.

The divider was up, so Davey couldn’t ask the driver, who he was pretty sure was also the bodyguard, any of his ten million questions. Like why was he really going to Tokyo? How much money would his siblings be getting? Why did Mr. Pulitzer pay so much money to cover their debts? How much trouble was Davey really in?

All he could do was look out the window and see the people trying to take pictures through the windows that were so tinted nobody could see inside.

The limo drove right onto the tarmac at the airport, and Davey could instantly spot the plane he would be boarding.

It was sleeker than the other plans. Shiny, black, and with a pointier nose than the commercial planes also on the runway. There was also a huge, bright purple Warcross logo on the side.

A chunk of one of the Ss was missing where the staircase was out to the ground.

The limo stopped right in front of the staircase, and Davey’s door was pulled open.

“Go right on up.”

The plane ride was a blur. Davey had only been on a place once before, and it was when he was so little he barely remembered it, but he was pretty sure this place was nothing like that one. This plane had seats that might as well have been recliners, and a glass of champagne already sitting on a table next to his seat, and even though it was a long flight, almost fourteen hours, it didn’t feel very long at all because there was a TV playing highlights from the qualifiers that were almost over and another one playing the newest popular movies.

And there was a pair of Warcross glasses next to his seat on top of a note that just said “on the house,” implying they were for him.

They were brand new, the latest model, and they calibrated ten times more easily than his old pair.

So he spent his flight exploring the new features on his new glasses and watching the things on TV.

The Desert Wings had won their rematch of the round Davey interrupted. The last three rounds of qualifiers were tonight, and the commentators on TV seemed to all agree that the Wings would make it to the finals. The Red Wires, too, just like Les had said. The other eight spots seemed to still be up for debate.

Fourteen hours passed pretty quickly with the entertainment available to him.

Another car was waiting when the plane landed in Tokyo, with a man standing next to it to open the door as soon as Davey climbed down the plane’s staircase.

This car wasn’t a limo, but it was very nice nonetheless.

And it pulled up to a building just as black and shiny as the plane had been, with the same massive purple logo across the front of it.

Warcross Tokyo was the second biggest building belonging to the Warcross company. While the business side of things had always been kept in New York where Joseph Pulitzer was from, the development side of the company had moved to Tokyo six years ago, when the official tournaments started. Every new competition level and power-up came straight from this huge building Davey was being led inside.

“Mr. Pulitzer is waiting for you upstairs,” a smiling secretary said from behind the front desk. “He has all of the details of your stay here in Tokyo. Top floor, it’s the only room.”

Davey’s feet felt like they were getting heavier as he walked to the elevator.

Nobody walked with him, and all he got when the elevator door opened was a somewhat reassuring nod from the receptionist and another swoop of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. He still couldn’t figure out why Mr. Pulitzer wanted to meet with him, and he was terrified to find out.

The elevator didn’t even open into a hallway, or in front of a door. When the doors slid open, it was directly into a massive office. Most of it was practically empty, aside from the huge desk directly across from the elevator.

“You must be David Jacobs.”

Davey hadn’t noticed the man sitting at the desk right away. He looked small, especially with the wall of windows behind him, making him barely more than a silhouette against the bright Tokyo skyline.

“Come. Sit.”

Davey crossed the open floor to the desk and sat in one of the empty chairs. Now that he was close enough to really look at him, he was easily recognizable as Joseph Pulitzer, CEO of Warcross. He was pretty recognizable, with his pointy white beard that had always kind of reminded Davey of Colonel Sanders. His face had been absolutely everywhere since Warcross went online eight years ago.

It had started as just another online game that happened to need more advanced VR tech than anything else on the market.

The initial response had been pretty mixed. It was expensive, even though the game itself was free because to play you had to have the expensive glasses. Since the Warcross company had the patent to the tech, it wasn’t like there were any cheaper options on the market. So the consensus had pretty much been that it was a fun game, and very impressively put together, but it might not be worth it for most people.

And then the second edition of glasses had come out, and so the first edition were suddenly much cheaper, and Warcross had become a part of daily life seemingly instantaneously. The entire world had Warcross over laid on top of it. Businesses used it in their marketing, buying points to give out to people who bought from them or came inside or talked about them on the chatboards. People wore their glasses everywhere, never disconnected from what had shifted away from being a game and into just being the way people lived.

And so Joseph Pulitzer had gone from an old, slightly irrelevant indie game developer to the richest and arguably most powerful man in the world.

“Hello,” Mr. Pulitzer said, extending a hand across the desk for Davey to shake.

“Um, hello.”

“Welcome to Tokyo. I trust your flight was enjoyable? I see you took the glasses we provided.”

“Oh, yes, sir. Thank you very much.”

“According to the data from your impressive hack, you were working from the second edition glasses. These aren’t even available to the public yet. They are the exclusive property of official team members.” Mr. Pulitzer pulled a pair of glasses identical to the ones left for Davey on the plane from a desk drawer. “Another new design will be provided to the final eight teams.” He reached into the drawer again and pulled out a small box, sliding it towards Davey across the desk. “Take a look.”

The box was maybe the size of Davey’s phone, made of some kind of matte black plastic, and it opened with a small button set into the side. The lid popped open and revealed two small, clear disks set onto dark purple fabric.

“Contacts?”

“Pick one up. Take a look.”

Davey gently lifted one of the lenses from the box and brought it close to his face, studying it.

It was thicker than the contacts he wore, and when he tilted it to the light just right he could see thin circuits running through it, a barely different shade of clear from the rest of it.

He couldn’t figure out what it was made out of. Whatever it was was as flexible as his own contacts, but definitely stronger.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course, you may have the opportunity to try them out. If things go your way.” Davey gingerly put the contact lens back in the box and shut the lid.

“If…if things go my way?”

“Haven’t you checked the news in the last hour? My boy, you’ve just been named a wildcard. You have an eight in forty chance of being a Warcross finalist.”

“I…how can I be a wildcard? I’m level twenty-eight, I’ve never competed-“

“You hacked into the most protected server on the planet from your living room on outdated technology. People around the world wanted you to be a wildcard, and I personally approved the request.” Mr. Pulitzer leaned closer across the desk, and Davey leaned back away from the intensity in his eyes. “Would you rather be in trouble? Because I assure you, Mr. Jacobs, I could press charges instead. Your interruption cost my company millions. Instead, you’re being given the chance of a lifetime to break into a world people dream of being a part of.”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“Here’s my offer, then. You get to be a wildcard, giving you a three in twenty chance of competing in the Warcross finals, and I won’t press charges for the losses you caused my company. There’s only one thing I want from you in return, and it’s very simple.”

A catch. Of course.

“What is it?”

“I want to know every weakness in my game’s security. Clearly, there are more than I would like. The last round of qualifiers is tonight, the teams are arriving right now, in fact, and the draft is tomorrow. As a wildcard, your stay in Tokyo will be covered for the two months leading up to the games, whether you’re drafted or not. In those two months, I want you to find the weaknesses that could be used to get inside closed servers the way you did, and I want you to tell me what I can do to close the gaps. I don’t want anybody to be able to touch my game except for people who work for me.”

Davey frowned.

“It…I can try.”

He almost tried to explain that it wasn’t that simple.

That there weren’t gaps, exactly, that code couldn’t be sealed like a wall, especially in a program that worked the way Warcross did. Because it was an immersive experience, and because the code could be accessed literally visibly in a 3D space, it would be impossible to “close the gaps.” Anybody determined enough could build there own, the way Davey had added the key to the end of his own ID number.

The code could be tighter, the firewalls more complex, the hacking could be made harder. But it would never be impossible to get through, not with the way it currently worked.

“So you agree?”

“Yes,” Davey said firmly.

Why not?

He could try.

And then he wouldn’t be sued. Which he desperately wanted to avoid.

“Excellent. Of course, you already heard that the Warcross company has ensured your siblings will be comfortable in your absence. You will likely find a career in Warcross even if you are not drafted, as people seem to love you, but if you don’t, as long as you fulfill your side of our deal, you’ll be compensated fairly. In the next two months, I expect to hear from you regularly.”

“Okay.”

“In that case, sign here.”

Mr. Pulitzer pulled a sheet of paper from another drawer and slid it towards Davey with a pen.

It was a pretty simple contract. There didn’t seem to be any fine print, or even any particularly confusing wording. It was one-sided, nothing on the back, and it seemed to say exactly what Mr. Pulitzer had just said.

Davey was a wildcard and wouldn’t be sued as long as he did his best to find the gaps in the game’s programming and report them to Pulitzer. It didn’t even say he needed to find all of them, just that he would report every one he found.

So he signed it and pushed it back across the desk.

Mr. Pulitzer smiled, and it made Davey uneasy. His smile didn’t reach his eyes, which still looked just as intense as they had when he’d threatened Davey with a lawsuit.

“I’m glad you agree. The car is waiting outside to take you to your hotel. You’ll be left alone until you report to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. You are dismissed.” He turned away from Davey and looked down at something on his desk that looked like a computer screen set into the surface.

When Davey was in the car, he put his glasses on and blinked his way through the updates to his profile.

_Welcome to Tokyo! +8,000 points!_

_Achievement reached: Be part of the Warcross championship! +20,000 points!_

_Achievement reached: Visit Warcross Tokyo HQ! +4,000 points!_

_Level up! Achievement reached: Level 30!_

Once the text had faded, the world of Warcross settled in over the view outside. The lights seemed brighter and more colorful. People’s faces and outfits changed, and they had numbers floating above their heads, broadcasting their levels to the world. Shops that had seemed to be completely unlabelled before suddenly had bright, flashing signs. Holographs popped out of street corners advertising different things for sale in stores that could only be accessed through Warcross.

New York City was on the grid, sure. There were things like this, especially in the richer areas. But there had been nothing like this, like this insane amount of virtual reality overlaid over the city to the point where Davey couldn’t even see the real city.

After a few minutes of staring out the window, he noticed the little blinking notification in the corner of his vision.

These glasses were so much nicer than his old pair, all he had to do was look at the blinking light to call up the notifications.

One was a message from Sarah that he had a feeling he should save until he had plenty of time to respond.

One was a message from the Warcross officials, which normally would have been some kind of system wide alert about an update or change, but when he opened it, it was an invitation to the wildcard draft. His official notification that he was, in fact, a wildcard.

And one was a flashing news update, another headline with his name in it.

“Davey Jacobs named surprise wildcard, takes off to Tokyo in private jet.”

Yeah, that was a summary of his last sixteen hours.

The car pulled up to the nicest hotel Davey had ever seen in his life. Even when he took his glasses off, the entire building seemed to glitter in the sun. And when he walked inside, he was hit in the face with the glitz of it. Everywhere he looked there was another over the top intricate detail, gold leaf or a carved sconce.

He didn’t even have to introduce himself before somebody was handing him a key and leading him up to his room.

“This room will be available to you until you’re either drafted to a team or the tournament is over,” the woman leading him cheerfully explained. “Everything is completely paid for, so feel free to order room service or make use of the minibar.”

With that, she left Davey alone in a hotel room that was bigger than his entire apartment.

The window looked out to the driveway, and as Davey looked out, there was a flurry of activity. Another car was driving in. It was a lot less subtle than the one Davey had been in, which has just been a nice car. This one was bright, fire engine red. There was literal fire coming out of the top.

People tried to rush in behind it, barely stopped by the gates Davey hadn’t even noticed before closing behind the car. Camera flashes were going off like crazy, and when the car stopped in front of the hotel and a person got out, Davey could hear the screams from his room.

He recognized the girl who’d climbed out, too. Obviously.

Her mohawk was the same color as her car, and when he put his glasses on, it turned into flames. The number bobbing above her head informed him she was level seventy-one. She struck a pose before turning to enter the hotel, showing off her custom Warcross glasses that were as iconic as her hairdo, their neon purple thick frames standing out against all the red.

Sniper.

The highest ranked individual player who was the number one seed of the wildcard draft. She was a Fighter, and a lot of people couldn’t believe a sponsor hadn’t picked her for an official team yet. She had a huge following, though, and it seemed like a lot of them had shown up to watch her arrive at the hotel all of the wildcards were staying at.

Davey was way out of his league. Way over his head.

He wouldn’t get chosen, he kept repeating to himself to keep himself from spiraling. The lowest level in the draft other than him was a sixty. He was literally half as experienced than everyone else here. No team in their right mind would choose him.

But he was still suddenly part of this world, and he had no idea what he was doing.

And instead of actually dealing with any of that. Instead of answering Sarah’s message, or starting to poke at coding, or even going to dinner to meet any of the other forty wildcards who were steadily arriving to this hotel, Davey went to bed.

He was woken up by his phone ringing loudly from his bedside table.

He blearily reached for it and accepted the call.

“What is going on David Jacobs?” Sarah said as soon as he did. “Why won’t you answer me? Are you in bed? What the hell is going on?”

“I…it’s very late here. Yes, I’m in bed. I’ve been just a little bit busy. I-“

“We’ve been going crazy! There’s a new news story out about you every five minutes! They’re saying you’re going to be in the finals!”

“Well, probably not. I’m a wildcard.”

“What the hell?”

“I met Joseph Pulitzer yesterday. I’m a wildcard, and I think I also kind of work for him. To find places that could be hacked so he could fix them.”

“So you’re a tech guru for the Warcross championships?”

“Kinda.”

“When are you coming home?”

“After the tournament is over. I have to stay.”

Sarah sighed, but she also sounded more relaxed when she spoke again.

“I thought maybe they were throwing you in prison or something. We were worried.”

“Sorry. It’s kind of been crazy.”

It was nice to talk to Sarah. It made everything feel just a little bit more normal. Sarah told him about the expression on their landlord’s face when he’d shown up with their completely paid bill. And how they’d gotten a check in the mail from Warcross Inc. with a letter explaining that it was their weekly allowance for as long as Davey was gone. Enough money for food for a month, and they would be getting that every week.

She also said that the reporters and paparazzi had left behind Davey’s car. They didn’t care about Sarah and Les. Les’s classmates thought he was the coolest person around, and Sarah’s boss had asked for an autograph.

Davey laughed at that and promised to send one home in a letter.

“What time is it there? You should probably go back to sleep, huh?”

“Probably. It’s about three am.”

“Okay. Well…don’t ignore me. Good luck at the draft tomorrow. I’m letting Les stay home to watch.”

“Please don’t wish me good luck. I don’t want to be picked.”

“Good luck.” Her grin was obvious in her words. “And good night. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Six hours later, he was sitting in a row of chairs, looking out at eight tables of four people each who were all studying the group of forty Wildcards Davey was part of.

The last eight teams had all been made official last night.

The Desert Wings had made it easily into the top of the bracket, meaning they would have first pick of the wildcards to get their Architect for the final tournament.

The Red Wires were just behind them, and the Rocky Helms were in third.

Team Lightning Strike was seeded fourth, just barely beating out the Fire Breathers, who in turn had just barely beat the Stone Wolves. The bottom two teams were the Frozen Flowers and the Thunderwaves, both of which had been surprise contenders.

Of the eight teams, three needed an Architect. Two needed Fighters, two needed Shields, and one needed a Thief. Obviously, none of them needed a Captain.

That wouldn’t be a great strategy from the sponsors, who chose the four team members who started the season.

The eight teams had an hour to decide who they wanted. They’d get to pick in the order they were seeded.

It had been fifty-eight minutes since the countdown to the actual draft had started, according to the clock hanging above the arena they were sitting in.

This arena was huge. It was only five years old and had been built specifically for the Warcross tournaments. It was only used once a year, for the month of the final matchups. It was equipped with the most advanced tech pretty much anywhere in the world.

He couldn’t see it now, but he knew there were ten pods that the players of any given match got sealed inside that let them experience the game in a much more immersive way than the general VR from just the glasses allowed.

The glasses were good, obviously. The technology was kept pretty secretive, but they did somehow manage to create a 4D experience. Players on just the glasses could feel solid walls or the ground, but there weren’t many details.

The pods were supposed to fill in those details, to make the textures feel more realistic and even to let the players smell the environment around them.

Davey was the only person who seemed as enthralled by the arena as he was, which kind of made sense. Everyone else had probably competed in an arena before.

The closest Davey had gotten was running the books at fights in the Darknet.

The timer ran out with a beep.

It was time for the draft to happen.

In half an hour, Davey could go back to the hotel and focus on doing the job Mr. Pulitzer wanted him to do.

“Desert Wings, who do you choose?” A smooth robotic voice came from the speakers all around the arena.

The Desert Wings were sitting at the table closest to the wildcards. They had been quietly talking for the entire hour, and still seemed to be discussing something. After another thirty seconds, Jack Kelly said something that made the other three laugh before turning to the little screen in front of him and tapping the name of the wildcard they were choosing.

Davey expected it to be somebody like Parker Hansen, level sixty-eight Architect who had been a wildcard last year, too. Or Jackie Aldronfe, who was new to the draft but not to the competitive scene and was probably the most popular Architect of the thirteen wildcards who shared the position.

So seeing his own name and avatar shoot up onto the screen made him practically short-circuit.

The people who were here in the arena watching positively erupted. He couldn’t tell if they liked the choice or hated it, but they were very, very loud about it.

The other wildcards had a few different reactions. He heard a few scoffs. Somebody whispered something about the Wings picking their own suicide player. Somebody laughed. None of them sounded particularly happy.

Davey knew in his head what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to go sit in the empty chair at the Desert Wings’ table.

He couldn’t make his feet move until the person next to him pushed his shoulder and kickstarted him.

It felt like it took an hour to walk to the table and sit in the chair at the end. Next to Crutchie Morris, Fighter.

“Hey,” he said when Davey sat down. “Welcome to the team.”

“Try not to fall in love with me,” Race, Thief, said.

“He’s not an asshole once you get to know him.” Albert, Shield.

“Shh. The Red Wires are about to pick.” Jack Kelly, Captain, was leaning forward on his elbows, frowning at the next table over.

“We all know who they’re taking.”

The Captain of the Red Wires, Spot Conlon, who used to be the Architect on the Wings according to Les and so was the person Davey was replacing, hit his own button and sat back in his seat.

He was tiny. Probably only around five feet tall. His hair was pulled into a puff on top of his head, and there was a white streak running through it that started at the white spot on his forehead. Other white spots were scattered pretty much symmetrically across his face, standing out against his dark skin.

He was also, Davey decided, just a little bit terrifying. After he pushed his button, he looked over the Desert Wings’ table, caught Jack’s eye, and glared.

If looks could kill, that look would have. In an instant. The entire table would have been dead. He looked like he was imagining a laser going through all of them.

He broke the glare to greet the new addition to his own table, Sniper, which wasn’t a surprise at all. Of course, the best Fighter in the draft would go to the highest seed who needed a Fighter. It was a logical choice. A smart choice.

Completely unlike the Desert Wings choosing him.

His new team kept up a quiet running commentary through the rest of the draft, sometimes sounding very serious and strategic and sometimes cracking jokes.

It was obvious how close they were.

Davey felt so very out of place.

The feeling only intensified as the other teams called their wildcards. Every other person confidently joined their table when their name was called, greeting their new teammates with a smile.

When the robotic voice declared the draft over, much of the arena powered down. The wildcards who hadn’t been chosen left the way they came, heading back to the hotel to be sad, most likely.

“Ready to see the house, new guy?” Crutchie elbowed him as he stood up.

“You’re gonna milk not being the new guy anymore a lot, huh, Crutch?” Race stood up too, grinning at Crutchie over Albert’s head.

“I have to. You’ve been making fun of me for being new for the last six months, it’s my turn.”

“Sorry, David,” Albert said very seriously. “You’ve joined the meanest group of people on the planet.”

“He has not, quit being assholes. Welcome to the Desert Wings, Davey, you’re gonna flip your shit when you see where we live,” Jack Kelly said to him, the first thing his new Captain had actually said to him.

He looked much more relaxed than he had when Davey had sat down at the table, an easy smile across his face and his hands shoved into his pockets. His eyes were sparkling, and it was easy to tell why he was one of the most popular Warcross players with the people who picked their favorites based on looks.

“I…what about all my stuff?”

“It’ll probably already be in the house when we get there. They move fast around here.” Jack shrugged.

“When I was picked I swear they had my stuff in the house before they even picked me,” Albert said.

“Ha, remember when you were a Dragon?”

“Considered I literally just shared a memory of being a Dragon, yes, Race, I remember when I was a Dragon.”

“Kasey looked like she wanted to kill you during the qualifier.”

“She was about to stab me when Davey interrupted if you recall.”

“I don’t, since I was about to nab the coolest power-up in the game if you recall.”

Davey felt himself blushing at the mention of his accidental appearance in their game.

“How did you do that, by the way?” Crutchie asked, hitting the bottom of a door out of the arena with his crutch, making it pop open. “Nobody could figure it out.”

“Especially that fast,” Race said. “That power-up was live for what, thirty seconds before I went for it? And you beat me to it. Did you get to keep it?”

“No, um, they took it back pretty quick.”

“Shame. Would have been a nice thing to have in play.”

“We don’t get to keep our personal inventories in gameplay anyway.”

“Seriously, though, how did you?” Crutchie asked again when they were all inside a car that had been waiting for them just outside the arena.

“It was just firewalls,” Davey said, his face heating up again.

“Plural, in that amount of time?”

“They weren’t very good firewalls. The same kind most normal computers have just layered on top of each other.”

“And then the power-up was just yours for the taking?”

“You all had the key at the end of your game ids. It was the only thing you had in common. So I added it to my id and then I had full access to the power-ups and game inventory.”

“Crazy,” Crutchie said, shaking his head.

“He’s a wildcard. He’s gotta be crazy,” Jack said with an easy smile. “That’s why we chose him.”

“Ever play team Warcross before, Dave?” Albert asked, leaning closer to Davey with what could only be described as a devious grin when Davey shook his head. “You better hope you’re as crazy as we think you, then. Or you’re in for a rough time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey hey guess who's back with another au that won't ever get finished because _i'm still a piece of garbage_
> 
> if you want to see more, let me know! feedback is motivation! comments feed me!
> 
> this is based on the book Warcross by Marie Lu, who's like one of the best current YA authors I love her. She also wrote the Legend series which is another unfinished fic of mine oops.
> 
> Anyway, please leave a comment! Also come hang out on Tumblr, I'm @graybeard-halt


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